


You Only Christmas Shop Once (A Year)

by the_wordbutler



Series: Motion Practice [19]
Category: Cable and Deadpool, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Holidays, Legal Drama, M/M, motion practice universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 15:24:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look, it’s not like Wade hates hanging out with Hope, because he actually loves it.  And it’s not that shopping with Hope for Nate is a totally horrible idea, because it’s a kind of great one.  It’s just that, well, Nate’s about as complicated as feelings, and feelings are freaking <i>hard</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Only Christmas Shop Once (A Year)

**Author's Note:**

> My awesome readers, through extensive conversation on tumblr, taught me a great deal about the conventions of written sign language and how ASL is actually transcribed from a practical standpoint. I know precious little sign language—I learned a handful of signs in an education course years ago—and therefore do not pretend to understand its complicated nature. It is but one of the many languages I do not speak. For that reason, the portions of conversation which are signed are written in usual prose and flagged marked with » and « to denote how it differs from speech as well as Wade’s overuse of _emphasis_.
> 
> I also have no idea whether Wade’s learned passable sign language too quickly to be realistic. I feel that, between taking classes and being around Nate and Hope, he’d pick up enough to have actual conversations. Wade’s not stupid, after all. At least, not in things that matter to him. 
> 
> This story is set during the Christmas season after Diversions but contains no spoilers.
> 
> This is the first of three very merry and seasonally-appropriate “thank you” notes to my betas, Jen and saranoh, whose edits and comments are the greatest gifts an author could receive.

«Your dad might kill me for this,» Wade signs, his fingers all clumsy and poorly-coordinated thanks to the fork he’s clutching in his left hand. Across the food court table, Hope squints her bright, mismatched eyes at him. She’s armed with a fork of her own and a Cinnabon that’s literally the size of her head, and Wade can tell that the only reason she’s waiting to dig in is because he’s in the middle of explaining something. He sighs and gestures to the oversized lump of pastry and frosting. “Because of that,” he says aloud, and abandons actual sign language for, you know, global indicators of exactly what he means. “Your dad—” He puffs out his chest and squares his shoulders, and Hope giggles. “—kills me.” 

He pretends to hang himself, tongue lulling out, and Hope grins as she shakes her head. Her cheeks flare pink from laughing, something he never really noticed until that one afternoon where they exchanged stupid knock-knock jokes and laughed until they cried. He thinks for a second she’ll say something else—they’re starting to get a lot better at this talking thing, as long as Hope signs really slowly and deliberately, which is apparently hard when you’ve spent your whole life deaf and go to a school for deaf kids and your whole family aside from that guy who dates your dad is super fluent in sign language—but the siren call of the Cinnabon totally wins out.

Not that Wade blames her. Uh, there’s a reason he grabbed his own fork.

The local mall, which has a stupid name that Wade never pays attention to because, as far as he’s concerned, it’s just the damn mall (accept no substitutions or pretentious titles), is crowded on this particular Saturday afternoon, the whole place literally overrun with holiday shoppers. Secular, godless Christmas music blares through all the speakers, wreaths and lights and garland and ornaments hang from every bare surface, and Wade’s been goosed by more overflowing Bath and Body Works bags than he can count. Hell, the freaking carousel rings in the season by playing “Jingle Bell Rock” instead of whatever tinny circus tune it usually tortures him with. Wade knows this because he and Hope’ve ridden it three times already.

Seriously, the jingle bell ring needs to hop off the swing and stop dancing and prancing already, because otherwise he might cut someone just to see if they bleed tinsel.

He’d debated a bunch about whether he and Hope’d even leave the house, because god only knew why anyone in the universe’d want to leave him alone with a nine-year-old for part of a weekend, let alone allow him to drag the nine-year-old out into public and potentially lose her. He’d explained that very thing to Nate in no uncertain terms, lounging in his underwear on Tuesday night and watching as the guy packed his suitcase.

“There are bad men in white vans who like pretty little redheaded girls, you know,” he’d commented, and Nate’d rolled his eyes as he debated between two identical white shirts. If Wade’d learned only one thing in his months of dating Nate—and trust him, he’d learned a lot more than just the one—it was that the man loved his paper-thin, chest-hugging button-downs. Wade’d stripped him out of enough of them to know. He’d also rolled over to prop himself up on his elbows. “Stranger danger, _Criminal Minds_ badguys, crazy cannibalistic psychologists—”

“Hannibal Lecter is a psychiatrist,” Nate’d corrected as he finally started folding one of the doppelganger shirts.

“See? I don’t even know which kind of head-shrinker the crazy cannibal _is_ , and he’s so well-dressed, you really can’t expect me to protect your nine-year-old from him.” He’d watched Nate’s lips creep into something that almost resembled a smile—and that therefore qualified as completely the wrong expression to match the conversation. He’d grabbed one of the pillows and flung it in Nate’s direction, but Nate deflected it with the side of his arm and shot him a pointed look. “She’s your kid and Nadine’s kid and definitely not my kid,” he’d pressed, and watched as Nate’s face started to soften. “And that means that if she even gets the hiccups or something, I’m going to feel super guilty and responsible and shitty and it’ll probably make you break up with me.”

Nate’d raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t break up with you when you broke into my house to ‘surprise’ me and I nearly had a heart attack,” he’d replied evenly.

“Uh, yeah, because you never lock the window in here, and also, finding me on your bed was sort of the best anniversary gift ever, especially since I was naked except for— Hey!”

A pillow to the face shut him up, sure, but not nearly as well as when the bed dipped and suddenly Nate was hovering over him, crowding into his personal space and effectively pinning him across the mattress. Wade’s not too proud to admit that they’d made out for, like, twenty _really_ sexy minutes, Nate’s hands dragging up his skin like he was worshipping at some kind of fleshy temple and Wade really wishing that he’d ditched his boxers, like, a full hour earlier. 

Nate’d pulled away after a while, though, probably because he needed to pack and also because of the whole totally adult discussion about adorable nine-year-old daughters. “Nadine can’t switch weekends because they’re taking the children to Brett’s parents’ house for an early Christmas—”

“They do know that December, like, tenth isn’t early Christmas as much as it’s super-late Thanksgiving, right?”

“—and I will be home Saturday night to survey the damage.” Wade’d sighed right about then and tried to look away, but Nate’s eyes’d behaved like his thigh and arm and pinned him down. He’s learned a lot about Nate’s looks—how deep and intense they run, for one, never mind how to identify whether they’re full of exasperation or amusement or love—and one of those lessons involves how fast that piercing gaze turns his mouth to sandpaper. He’d swallowed under it, and Nate’s thumb’d stroked his side. “She loves you,” he’d said softly.

“Uh, yeah, because I give her candy and show up to all of her dance recitals and play her screwed-up off-book version of Clue, not because—”

“No,” Nate’d interrupted, and Wade’d rolled his lips together. “She loves you because you love her. You deserve a day with her.”

Wade’d rolled his eyes. Not because Nate hadn’t hit the nail on the head—he’d hit it with, like, the biggest hammer in the universe, one so huge and heavy that the damn thing had a _name_ and a personality all its own—but because pretending he didn’t care worked a lot better than broadcasting it to the entire universe. “I’ve never said I love her,” he’d protested.

“No, you’ve only taken three separate sign language courses so you two can have your own conversations,” Nate’d retorted, and slowly slid off the bed.

He’d made up for that comment with sex. No, really, with Nate heading to D.C. for a weird conference-slash-networking event and abandoning Wade from Wednesday through Saturday? Let’s just say Wade’d needed to change Nate’s bedsheets before he’d felt comfortable staying over there with a nine-year-old and leave it at that.

Said nine-year-old wipes frosting off her mouth and starts signing something, but Wade’s staring into space for the first half and only really catches the last word, “Christmas.” They’ve spent a lot of time on holiday signs in Wade’s class, lately, learning the words to less-horrible songs than “Jingle Bell Rock.” He’s pretty sure he can now sign “Christmas” in his sleep. Either way, he blinks at Hope in confusion, and she frowns at him before she signs (with the kind of extreme slowness that proves she’s annoyed with him), «What are you getting Dad for Christmas?»

“Uh,” Wade answers, and then sits there with his mouth open and a glob of cinnamon-sugar bread dripping icing on the cheap Formica table. The truth is, he’s only really bought one thing to ring in the holiday season with Nate, but it’s not really a present _for_ Nate and also, the conversation about Dad’s boyfriend wearing ruffled, seasonally-appropriate panties is really not one you have in a food court filled with strangers. In fact, Wade’s pretty sure those conversations land you in jail and your guy’s kid in protective custody, and while Bruce Banner kind of tolerates him, Wade’s pretty sure this’d qualify as a bridge way, _way_ too far.

He shoves Cinnabon in his mouth to avoid answering, and Hope frowns at him. «Did you get him a present?« she asks.

“Yes,” he says with his mouth full, and he nods, too. She tips her head at him. “Some of a present,” he clarifies, and he’s not sure whether she squints as his mouth because she’s disappointed in him or because she can’t read his lips. The squint only increases when he signs the same thing, and he sighs. «He’s hard to find presents for,» he explains.

Hope nods a little. «Mom said I don’t have to get him something,» she informs him, «but that’s not—» Wade misses the last word, but he can tell from the girl’s frown that it’s not all about sunshine and lollipops. At the risk of being “that guy,” Wade devotes a half-second to thinking Nadine is an enormous douchebag. No, actually, a bag isn’t enough. Maybe she’s a _canal_ of douche. «I got Brett and my sister and brother something,» Hope continues, and Wade forces himself to pay attention, «but not Dad.»

«Your dad’s hard,» Wade agrees, and really, he only mourns the missed opportunity for an inappropriate joke for a single beat. Hope pokes her fork into the Cinnabon, so Wade reaches out and nudges her hand with two of his fingers. «We can look together,» he suggests.

Her bright eyes fly open like Wade’d just announced that he’d booked them both tickets to the North Pole and that they’d take off in an hour, so pack your bags. Something in her grin twists a soft place in the depths of his gut—same as always, but it’s been a while at this point so you might’ve forgotten that Wade adores this kid like maybe he’d acquired her himself—and he grins right back at her. «We have to go everywhere,» she declares, all of her signs a little too emphatic.

«No store—» Wade pauses, realizes that he lacks signs for “unturned,” “ignored,” and “skipped,” and sort of shakes his head at himself. «Every store,» he amends, and she giggles at him as she helps herself to the very last bite of Cinnabon.

They dump the trash in an overflowing can outside Panda Express and start their trip around the mall, Hope not necessarily holding his hand but occasionally snagging him by the sleeve when the crowd grows too thick to really maneuver through. They skip all the stores that obviously don’t apply to Nate—Victoria’s Secret, Gymboree, a bunch of other women’s clothing stores all packed in next to one another. Hope tries to drag him into Spencer’s Gifts but he suggests (mostly through non-ASL approved “abort mission, oh god no” signs) they skip over it in favor of Hot Topic, and even though they leave without a gift for Nate, Hope loves her new Strawberry Shortcake keychain.

Hey, if it gets her to never ask about Spencer’s Gifts again, Wade counts it as a win.

They duck into a movie store, Sharper Image, two different candy shops (where they eat samples but definitely don’t buy anything), one of those “we engrave any metal you hand us” places, and a really expensive menswear place, but it’s all for naught. And not for a lack of looking, either; they try on headphones, sit in massage chairs, and pet ridiculously-priced ties, but nothing feels right. Wade starts to think that his great declaration of holiday love will be a Starbucks gift card and his aforementioned underwear, and that he and Hope’ll just pick out a _World’s Best Dad_ mug and be done with it.

He stops her to point out that it’s an option, and she sends him the world’s dirtiest look. «He already has two,» she informs him curtly. Trust him, signs can be curt as fuck, especially when coupled with that frown.

In Bath and Body Works, Hope momentarily forgets about her mission to find the perfect gift and starts smelling every candle in the place. Wade smiles a little as he watches her. According to his phone, it’s another four hours until they need to leave for the airport to pick Nate up, and Wade tries very hard not to feel like four hours is a lifetime. The togetherness time with Hope’s awesome, don’t get him wrong, but he still feels a little like a failure. It shouldn’t be this hard to pick out a present with a nine-year-old.

She lifts up a candle called Pinewood Something—Pinewood Derby, maybe? No, that’s a Boy Scout thing, not that—and he coughs after taking a whiff. “That is almost as gross as your dad’s socks,” he says, and his crinkled face must be hilarious because of how hard Hope laughs. She holds it out to him, and he raises his hands. “Nope,” he informs her, signing the very same thing. “No way are we buying that.”

She puts it down to retort, «He might like it.»

“Or you might like grossing us both out,” Wade replies, even if he kind of fudges over the sign for “grossing” (which he’s pretty sure doesn’t actually exist.) Hope laughs again and leaves the Pinewood Death Scent on the corner of the table to check out the non-holiday candles, and Wade shakes his head at her.

“You should be careful,” someone else comments, and Wade glances over to see a middle-aged woman standing next to him and watching Hope stick her face in an orange candle that logic suggests smells like—wait for it—oranges. He blinks, just the once, and the woman shoots him a glimmering little smile. “A face like that, you might go home with a dozen candles.”

Wade grins a little and shrugs. “She already conned me into a Cinnabon the size of her head and a keychain. Last thing I need to add to the pile’s a bunch of housewares that’ll gather dust in the linen closet or something.”

The woman laughs. “I’m sure your wife will forgive you for not resisting her wiles.”

Wade starts to open his mouth, but something stops him for a second. Maybe, he thinks, it’s because he’s naturally a shit-stirrer and can’t resist saying the slightly-awkward thing at the most-awkward time. Then again, it could be because Hope darts off to the men’s aromatherapy section to start smelling all _that_ , grinning over her shoulder at him and warming his whole chest. He’s not really sure.

But instead of correcting the woman, he says, “Well, it’s less my wife and more my boyfriend who’ll be pissed off, but yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s used to it.”

If he holds his breath before the woman tips her head at him in another little smile, well, nobody needs to know that. “I’m sure your boyfriend’s used to it from _both_ of you,” she decides before she walks away, and he’s still laughing hard enough that he wants to pee himself when Hope comes back with a half-dozen lotions for him to smell.

They leave Bath and Body Works empty-handed, though, and _then_ the Samsonite store, and Wade starts to feel pretty hopeless about the whole thing when Hope drags him to a stop outside a jewelry store. It’s fancy as hell, with dozens of glittery gemstones displayed in the outside window. Wade assumes she’s attracted to the sparkly shit like a magpie, but when she pulls him inside, she drags him straight to a display of—

“Uh,” he says dumbly, staring at the vast display of rings that she stops in front of. Seriously, it’s wedding bands, engagement rings, mother’s rings, probably secret Illuminati membership rings, you name it. Hope glances up at him expectantly, and he shrugs. «Is this about that boy you like?» he asks.

She scowls at him. «For Dad,»

«Hope, I don’t—»

«You could buy him a ring,» Hope interrupts, and Wade almost runs into a very well-dressed lady with a faux-fur collar on her coat because he steps back so quickly and _hard_.

«No,« he signs back, and he realizes that he’s saying it aloud when Mrs. Faux Fur twists to glare at him. He glares right back, but his mouth keeps moving. Actually, he’s pretty sure he can’t stop his mouth, not right now. «No, no, that’s a bad idea, no rings.»

Hope frowns at him. «Why not?»

«Because rings mean—« And since Wade’s totally clueless about the signs for “marriage,” “commitment,” and “super serious relationship stuff that we’re so not ready for, thank you very much,” he signs the words _big things_ one right after another. Hope tilts her head at him. «Rings are a big thing for adults,« he tries to explain, his mouth still in on the action. «It’s not really a Christmas gift thing.»

«But you love my dad,» Hope responds. Wade shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs, because okay, yeah, sure, but what’s her point, exactly? He loves Nate, but he also loves carne asada burritos and creaming Clint on _Assassin’s Creed_ multiplayer. He’s not buying either of those things rings. Well, actually, he’d maybe buy Clint a ring if they weren’t both happily with other people and if he didn’t think Phil might murder him in his sleep for even thinking about it, but that is neither here nor—

Wade only recognizes that Hope’s still signing at him—and that she’s _been_ signing at him this whole time actually, proving that it’s way easier to tune out a silent kid than one that chatters at you. He catches the end of a sentence that makes no sense out of context, and then her grand finale: «Just like Brett.»

He scowls at her. «That’s—» But he definitely never learned the requisite signing vocabulary to call the comment offensive _or_ rude, and therefore opts for the words «very not nice.» Hope frowns at him until he strings it all together, and then she rolls her eyes.

«You love my dad like Brett loves my mom, and he gave her a ring,» she clarifies before walking off to the next display, and oh. 

Well.

Wade can’t really argue with that.

They slip past the displays of necklaces, pendants, and very pretty tennis bracelets—and why _are_ they called tennis bracelets, anyway?—and Wade watches half-heartedly as Hope presses her nose against pretty much every one of the glass cases and earns some annoyed glances from the staff. Between the kid in the thick parka and Wade in his threadbare coat and crappy jeans, they probably look like they’re just there to gape, not pick out a Christmas gift for an extra-large big-and-tall man mountain who’s very important in their lives. Wade wants to be offended about it, but he’s too busy trying to figure out whether Hope’s lecture counted as her blessing for any future ring-exchanges—you know, if it ever happened.

He’s pretty sure he’s not the marrying kind. Then again, he also was once pretty sure he wasn’t the bonding-with-a-nine-year-old kind, and look how that turned out.

Hope’s about to leave the store and disappear out into the throng of people waiting for Santa—seriously, the line loops around the atrium play area _twice_ , no fat guy is worth that kind of wait—when he reaches out and snags her by the hood of her coat. She twists around and glances up at him, all big-eyed and momentarily hopeful, and okay, truth time: Wade’s breath stills in his chest.

He wants to wrap her up and explain all the different reasons adult relationships are complicated and sticky and _weird_ , and why you can love somebody so deeply that their four-day trip to D.C. feels like losing a limb and still not be prepared to buy them a ring that proves that, but she’s nine and he’s really not that good at sign language.

At least, not yet.

Instead, he crouches down and smooths messy red hair out of her eyes. «What about a watch?« he asks. She presses her lips together. «A really cool watch, from both of us, and we can have it engraved so everybody knows we got it for him.»

He swears he can see the wheels in her head turn. «Brett never got Mom a watch,» she points out.

«Because Brett’s not as great as we are,» Wade retorts, and man, he feels a hundred pounds lighter than usual when she grins at him. 

And so, on Hope’s Christmas—which, thanks to Nadine’s insistence that all her kids spend Christmas morning together and then visit some obscure relative instead of maybe seeing their awesome biological dad, is December 27—Nate opens a box from the jewelry store with an obscenely gorgeous silver watch inside. Hope pretty much wriggles in excitement, bouncing on the balls of her feet, but then there’s Wade.

And Wade, in his pajamas and with coffee (because apparently nine-year-olds don’t sleep past eight even on fake-Christmas), watches Nate’s face instead of Nate’s kid. Because he can read surprise there, and then genuine joy, and then something so warm that a thousand coffees couldn’t make Wade’s stomach swim the way Nate’s smile does.

Hope signs something to Nate that must involve the watch, because he immediately flips it over to read the engraving. It’s nothing special, just a simple _With love, Wade and Hope_ , but Hope’d agonized over it and insisted she be the one to write it down on the order form. Nate lightly runs his thumb over the writing before he leans forward and pulls Hope into an enormous hug.

It’s not until Hope’s breaking into her new Barbie Dream-whatever that Nate closes the distance between them on the couch and wraps his arm around Wade’s shoulders. Wade feels conspicuous for a half-second—hey, he’s just done a full fake-Christmas with somebody else’s kid, including pajamas and belated Santa and receiving a hand-painted coffee mug from a nine-year-old—but Nate’s thumb strokes along his arm in a way that slowly relaxes him. 

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and he wriggles his wrist to show off his new watch. His hand looks enormous and perfect. Wade wonders whether it’s socially unacceptable to ditch the kid and go upstairs to the bedroom for some quality time with those hands. “It’s a lovely watch.”

“Hope picked it out,” Wade replies immediately. Nate tilts his head to one side, and Wade shrugs. “Well, she picked it out once I decided maybe a watch was better than her first choice.”

Nate frowns slightly. “And what was her first choice?” 

“I can’t tell you that,” Wade returns. He wriggles in closer against Nate; the guy rolls his eyes a little, sure, but he also spreads his fingers possessively around Wade’s arm, like he thinks he might escape and land somewhere other than right next to him. “Because if I tell you that, then I can’t buy it for you for your birthday, or our anniversary, or next Christmas, or maybe Kwanzaa, or—”

“I’m going to shut you up now,” Nate warns, and he stops Wade’s lips with a kiss before Wade can ask _please_.


End file.
